About the Center for Democracy and Technology
The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic
values and civil liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law,
technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free
expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is
dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future
of the Internet and other new communications media.
Center for Democracy & Technology
1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 637-9800
(202) 637-0968 fax
http://www.cdt.org

About OMB Watch
OMB Watch is a nonprofit research, educational, and advocacy
organization that focuses on budget issues, regulatory policy, nonprofit
advocacy, access to government information, and activities at the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB). OMB Watch co-chairs several coalitions in
these issue areas, and is a leader in the use of communications technology
(e.g., e-mail, the World Wide Web, and on-line databases) for collecting
data and disseminating information to community groups across the nation.
OMB Watch
1742 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 234-8494
(202) 234-8584 fax
http://www.ombwatch.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Findings

The Ten Most Wanted Government Documents
Five Government Web Sites on the Right Track
Policy Recommendations

Ten Most Wanted Candidates
CRS
Cost
Requests for General Openness
Information Already Available Online
State and Local Information
Classified and Other Miscellaneous Requests

V. Analysis of Submissions

I. Findings

The Ten Most Wanted Government Documents

1) Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports (Congress) 
CRS uses taxpayer dollars to produce reports on public policy issues
ranging from foreign affairs to agriculture to health care. All of the
reports are posted online, but access is available only to congressional
offices through an intranet system. Citizens can order paper copies of the
reports through their Member of Congress, but only by mail. Moreover, the
general public cannot search through past reports, and a comprehensive
index of the reports is not available online. (Some Members have posted
some CRS reports online.) In the CDT/OMB survey, the CRS reports were the
category of documents most frequently listed sought after by researchers,
students, librarians, government employees, and citizens alike.

2) Supreme Court Web site (including opinions and briefs)
(Judiciary)  The Supreme Court of Mongolia has its own official
Web site, but the U.S. Supreme Court doesnt. Instead, the Court
refers people to one or more of 10 different unofficial Web sites, which
publish various subsets of opinions, updated with varying frequency. While
Court officials have said that they are exploring the possibility of
creating a Web site, there is no official source of information from the
highest court in the land. In addition to opinions, the Court should post
briefs, at least in cases accepted for oral argument.

3) State Department's Daily Briefing Book (State)  Nearly
every day, the State Department prepares for its press secretary a book of
answers to every question that might be asked during the daily press
conference. These briefing books represent considerable effort on the part
of Department officials and constitute the best overview of American
foreign policy positions on breaking issues at any given time. All the
material is cleared for public consumption, yet if a reporter doesnt
ask a question on a particular topic, the information doesnt get
released.

4) Pesticide Safety Database (EPA)  Under the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the EPA is required to
maintain an extensive database on pesticides and pesticide
"incidents" by location. This information concerns the health of
millions of Americans. Right now, individuals can make a paper request for
information about a particular pesticide or area of the country, but the
information is not searchable online and cannot be compared across
communities. Internet tools could assist in understanding and analyzing
this data. Providing this information online in the form of a a searchable
database, as the EPA has done with similar data sets, would enhance the
public's understanding of the pesticide risks in local communities.

5) Full Text of all Congressional Hearings (Congress) 
Prompt access to written statements and hearing transcripts is essential to
the publics participation in the legislative process. Printed
records of hearings are often not available until a year or more after a
hearing, sometimes long after legislation has been enacted or the term has
ended. Some Committees regularly place witness statements and the full
text of hearings online; others do not. Congressional committees should be
more consistent in automating the process of posting witness statements and
hearing transcripts to ensure speedy public access. Moreover, as
transcripts are all word-processed, the Government Printing Office could
easily make them permanently available online (if they were provided to
GPO).

6) Court Briefs (DOJ)  The public deserves to know how the
government interprets the laws. The Justice Department lawyers represent
the US government and therefore are the peoples lawyers. Their
briefs are public documents presenting the position of the US government.
Since these documents are word-processed, they could very easily be put
online, starting with significant criminal and civil cases.

7) Congressional votes in searchable database (Congress)
Congress has made roll-call votes available online, but they are impossible
to search by Members name. . Public accountability would be greatly
enhanced if citizens could find out how their Members of Congress voted
through an online, searchable database of recorded votes.

8) Endangered Species Recovery Plans (DOI)  These documents
detail how the government plans to defend endangered species and eventually
get them off of the endangered species list. The Fish and Wildlife Service
has told us that it plans to put these 700+ documents online eventually;
meanwhile, researchers, students, and concerned citizens have to pay to
have them sent in paper.

9) Official Gazette of Trademarks (DOC)  The Official
Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office is the official
journal relating to patents and trademarks. It has been published weekly
since January 1872. In searching for a reason why this publication is not
online, USPTO said it was up to GPO. GPO said that it will put online
anything USPTO or any other agency asks it to..

10) Circuit Court Web Sites (Judiciary) The federal Circuit
and District Courts have been slow to embrace the Web. Only 5 of the 12
Circuit Courts of Appeals have Web sites providing access to opinions at no
cost. While a number of law schools have stepped in to fill the gap, all
circuit courts should have official sites providing the public with free
access to court opinions. If five can do it, why cant the rest?

Five Government Web Sites on the Right Track

1) FedStats http://www.fedstats.gov  The
Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site of
statistics collected by over 70 federal agencies. The sites
information resources are vast and easy-to-use. It provides a model for
inter-agency collaboration and for placing dense technical data online in a
format that promotes meaningful access and use by the public.

2) Thomashttp://thomas.loc.gov
 Arguably the most famous of all federal government Web sites, Thomas
allows individuals to search and browse through a wealth of information
about congressional activity, including pending bills, enacted laws, the
Congressional Record, Committee reports, and other materials. While many
daily users wish it were more quickly updated, and while it does not
include Committee votes, amendments and other useful material, it is a
reliable and highly- used source of information.

3) NASAhttp://www.nasa.gov
 At last check, NASA was the busiest government Web site, with good
reason -- the site is innovative and well-designed, containing engaging and
educational resources.

4) The Circuit and District Courts with free opinions http://www.uscourts.gov  While
many courts complain that making opinions available online is too difficult
and expensive, a select few have proved them wrong by creating excellent
Web sites. For example, the Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh, DC, and Federal
Circuit Courts of Appeals all have reliable Web sites. A smaller
percentage of District (trial level) courts, including the Southern
District of Indiana and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, have sites
that allow visitors to use various search tools to locate information.

5) GPO Accesshttp://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/
 When we werent sure if particular information was online,
this was the first place that we looked. GPO Access provides a central
point for access to information from all branches of government and has
committed to provide permanent public access to the information on its
servers. In addition to providing a valuable resource of government
information on the Web, GPO continues to prod other agencies to place their
information online. GPO Access may be the best kept secret on the Web
 the Government should do more to inform the public that it exists.

Policy Recommendations

1) The Top Ten Documents should be put on the Web immediately.

2) All three branches (and the independent agencies) should institute
procedures that make public access to government information via the Web
the rule rather than the exception and an integral part of agencies'
missions. In the long run, the Internet could render the old model of
FOIA (individual citizen requests information, government employee searches
for it, makes a copy and mails it to that one citizen, in a process
repeated over and over again until all citizens have the information)
obsolete.

3) In the Executive Branch, all documents, publications, statistics, and
databases, including, but not limited to, everything printed by the
Government Printing Office (GPO), should be posted online unless a senior
official gives a narrowly defined reason why a particular item should not
be available to the public. Simply placing information online will not
suffice, however; there needs to be adequate cataloging and indexing of
information. Existing laws already require federal agencies to place
information online, but compliance is poor and enforcement weak.
Therefore:

Federal agencies should fully implement the requirements of
E-FOIA by
providing an index of each agency's major information holdings;

OMB and federal agencies should comply with the mandate of the Paperwork
Reduction Act to establish a Government Information Locator Service (GILS)
-- Agencies must identify their major information systems, holdings, and
dissemination products in online locators and should provide tools that
enable the public to retrieve information directly while online; and

Federal agencies should ensure that all printed materials are
distributed
to federal depository libraries and should identify all such information
products to GPO so they are cataloged electronically, to ensure that they
can be searched and identified by the public.

4) Federal agencies should develop policies and procedures for accepting
and responding to information requests online.

5) Building on the success of Thomas, Congress should fully utilize the
interactive nature of the Internet to make full information available (e.g.
committee markups, web casts at hearings) and to allow citizens to interact
with their representatives online.

6) The Judiciary should undertake a study of openness and the new
technology, to develop a plan on how the Internet can be used to improve
citizens' awareness of the judicial process, and a way to implement the
plan. The study should include stakeholder participation.

II. Background on the Ten Most Wanted Project

The Ten Most Wanted Government Documents initiative is the result of a
series of discussions among the Center for Democracy and Technology, OMB
Watch, the Administration and Congressional staff about the failure of many
government agencies to place information online despite requirements to do
so. These discussions identified a general policy failure, but the
participants wanted to demonstrate how this policy failure affects the
daily lives of Americans by limiting their access to specific categories of
vital information that should be online but arent. We believed that
the best way to capture the scale and scope of the problem was to put a
call out to activists, advocates, watchdog groups, reporters, researchers,
librarians, government employees, and ordinary citizens asking for their
help in identifying information that was missing in action. We thought
this would be the most powerful method of demonstrating the public impact
of this government information policy failure.

The public's response surpassed our expectations. We received hundreds
of responses from citizens, journalists, researchers, and activists hungry
for online access to information. We also received comments praising the
efforts of several federal agencies that make information available to the
public online. Thus, we decided to also highlight the work of five
agencies that are expanding the public's right to know. While no agency is
perfect, these agencies provide models and examples of the innovative
methods the Internet offers to promote public access to information.

Based on the public's responses and conversations with various agencies,
we developed a set of policy recommendations to improve access to
government information online.

III. Policy Background on Access to Government
Information

FOIA

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was signed into law in 1966.
Through this Act, every citizen of the United States gained the right to
access information held by the government  the right to obtain
reproductions of records created and maintained by and for federal
government agencies. The Act was created to "ensure an informed
citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to
check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the
governed." FOIA affirmed the public's right-to-know about the
business of government as a central principle of our democratic government
and open society.

Since 1966, the Freedom of Information Act has been amended six times: in
1974, with minor amendments in 1976, 1978, and 1984, in 1986, and, most
recently, in 1996. In each instance, the original Act was broadened to
cover more information deemed necessary to ensure the publics right
to know about the activities of the federal government.

The Freedom of Information Act covers records created within federal
departments, agencies, and offices, federal regulatory agencies, and
federal corporations. As defined by the Act, records include paper
documents, films, tapes, and other materials created or obtained by an
agency as part of its official duties. The 1996 amendments made clear that
"records" also include electronically-created information such as
databases, word processing, and e-mail.

Under the FOIA, federal entities are required to disclose records upon
the written request of a citizen, unless the records fall within one of the
nine exemptions to the Act. Records may be withheld from the public if they
are:

Specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive
Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign
policy, and are classified as such;

Related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of any
agency;

Specifically exempted from disclosure by statute;

Trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a
person and privileged or confidential;

Inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be
available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the
agency;

Personnel or medical files;

Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes;

Contained in or related to examination, operating or condition reports
prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of any agency responsible for the
regulation or supervision of financial institutions; or,

Geological and geophysical information and data.

The Freedom of Information Act is viewed by journalists, public interest
organizations, and citizens as an important tool in opening federal agency
policies and practices to public scrutiny. The congressional finding
accompanying the 1996 amendments to the Act state that the FOIA has
"led to the disclosure of waste, fraud, abuse and wrongdoing in the
Federal Government," and has "led to the identification of unsafe
consumer products, harmful drugs, and serious health hazards."

Electronic FOIA

In general, the 1996 amendments to FOIA were intended to simplify and
expedite access to federal government records through the use of electronic
communications media. The 1996 amendments received widespread bipartisan
support, passing on a vote of 402-0 in the House, and by voice vote in the
Senate. President Clinton signed the E-FOIA amendments into law on October
2, 1996. As noted in the floor debate, members of the public request more
than 600,000 records a year from federal agencies, a volume that threatens
to overwhelm some agencies. For example, a citizen requesting information
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation is likely to wait four years for
the information. By requiring information to be made available
electronically, Congress sought to lessen the burden on federal agencies
created by paper-processing and ensure the public timely and meaningful
access to information.

Requirements of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments

Electronic Reading Rooms

The 1996 amendments require agencies to make any of the following
"reading room" records created on or after November 1, 1996
available online by November 1, 1997:

Opinions from agency adjudications, policy statements and
interpretations adopted by the agency but not published in the Federal
Register, and staff manuals and instructions that affect the public; and

A new category of records  "Repeatedly Requested"
records (created on or after November 1, 1996) that have been processed and
released in response to a FOIA request that "the agency determines
have become or are likely to become the subject of subsequent requests for
substantially the same records."

If these records cannot be accessed online by November 1, 1997, they must
be made available through other electronic means, such as disk or CD-ROM,
by the November 1, 1997 deadline.

FOIA-processed, "repeatedly requested" records created prior to
November 1, 1996 are to be made available in the conventional
(non-electronic) agency reading room.

Reference Guides

The 1996 amendments created a new set of agency requirements to aid the
public in accessing federal government information.

By March 31, 1997, each agency must provide, in its reading room and
through an electronic site, reference material or a guide on how to request
records from the agency. This reference guide must include:

an index of all major information systems of the agency;

a description of major information and record locator systems
maintained by the agency; and

a handbook for obtaining various types and categories of public
information from the agency, both through FOIA requests and through
non-FOIA means.

By December 31, 1999, each agency must provide an electronic index of all
"repeatedly requested" records, regardless of date of creation.

Electronic Records

In addition, the 1996 Amendments explicitly state that, under FOIA, the
public has a right to gain access to records maintained by the agency in
electronic form as well as paper records. For example, if an agency
maintains an electronic database of information, a citizen may request the
agency to search that database for requested information and produce an
electronic copy of the entries that are responsive to the citizens
request. An agency is required, moreover, to "make reasonable efforts
to maintain its records in forms or formats that are reproducible for the
purposes of the [FOIA]."

GILS

The U.S federal Government Information Locator Service (GILS) is a standard
format used to identify, locate, and describe publicly available Federal
information resources, including electronic information resources. It is
essentially a cataloging format that uses international standards for
information search and retrieval so that information about information
 metadata  and, if the creator of the record so decides, the
information itself can be retrieved in a variety of ways.

The origin of GILS can be traced back to the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1980, which first mandated the establishment of a system to assist in
locating government information. After many delays and false starts, and
after further congressional direction in 1986, OMB formally announced the
Government Information Locator Service (GILS) in December,1994,. OMB
Bulletin 95-01, implementing the GILS, required each agency head to
"compile an inventory of its 1) Automated information systems, 2) Privacy
Act systems of records, and, 3) locators that together cover all of its
information dissemination products." It also established a GILS Board
"to evaluate the development and operationof the GILS." The Board
was tasked with "preparing and disseminating publicly an annual
report that evaluates and recommends enhancements to GILS to meet user
information needs, including factors such as accessibility, ease of use,
suitability of descriptive language, as well as the accuracy, consistency,
timeliness and completeness of coverage." The Board met once and
failed to issue a formal report. Bulletin 95-01 expired on December 7,
1997, and was not reissued.

In its place, OMB issued a Memorandum (M-98-05) on February 6, 1998 to the
heads of the executive agencies, affirming the ongoing responsibility of
agency heads to meet the requirements of Bulletin 95-01through annual
reporting under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Agencies were also
directed to "routinely solicit feedback on their GILS performance, results,
and plans from significant public stakeholders and user communities."
OMB's responsibilities are not mentioned. The GILS Board disappeared --
replaced by a request from OMB that the Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Council work with the Government Information Technology Services Board
(GITSB) to train agencies in GILS best practices, further develop the U.S.
Federal GILS guidelines, search standards and subject keywords, and
coordinate "one stop" access to multi-agency government services. The CIO
Council and GITSB have no mechanism for public participation or even input
 nor do most agencies -- and the concerns for "user information
needs, including factors such as accessibility, ease of use, suitability of
descriptive language, as well as the accuracy, consistency, timeliness and
completeness of coverage" have vanished. OMB personnel have publicly
commented that they would like to change the meaning of the acronym GILS
from Government Information Locator Service to Government
Information Locator Standard; it looks like they may have
accomplished that goal de facto.

Failures in E-FOIA and GILS Implementation

The legislative history of the 1996 Amendments to the FOIA make it clear
that Congress expected OMB to give guidance on the reference guides. Under
the Paperwork Reduction Act, OMB is required to provide formal guidance to
agencies regarding the implementation of laws, including the FOIA.
OMBs guidance on E-FOIA has not met Congress' expectations nor has it
fulfilled its statutory obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act. The
result has been a failure to meet the important public access goals of
FOIA, as agency upon agency fails to comply with the law.

On April 7, 1997, OMB distributed a memorandum to agencies describing how
to fulfill the requirements for a paper and online Freedom of Information
index and guide. Not only was the memo distributed a full week after the
March 31, 1997 deadline for completion of this task, guidance from OMB on
these significant new amendments was minimal. To fulfill the index
requirements, OMB recommended "establishing a Government Information
Locator Service (GILS) presence," in accordance with a 1994 OMB
Bulletin. While we agree with OMB that all agencies should have a well
maintained GILS, this alone does not fulfill the more substantial E-FOIA
amendment requirements. The 1994 OMB Bulletin on GILS instructed agencies
to "compile an inventory" of their "automated information
systems," "Privacy Act systems of records," and
"locators that together cover all...information dissemination
products," and describe each of these three by a "GILS Core
locator records...made available online." The E-FOIA, however, does
not limit agency reference guides to "automated information
systems," but rather, requires an index of "all major information
systems," a much broader category of information.

In addition, OMB instructed agencies that GILS must include locators for
"information dissemination products" which, in their guidelines,
include only locators for catalogs of information disseminated to
the public. E-FOIA, on the other hand, does not use this strict definition,
but broadens the definition to include locators for records that are not
currently disseminated to the public.

Finally, entire classes of information  automated electronic mail
and word processing systems  that were specifically included in the
E-FOIA legislation are exempted from GILS. Therefore, agencies who follow
OMBs advice fall far short of meeting the E-FOIA amendments.
Moreover, as noted in OMB Watchs report (Potholes on the Information
Bridge to the 21st Century), there is uneven and inadequate
agency compliance with the GILS requirements and no OMB enforcement.

Guides

OMB also suggested that agencies create a guide for obtaining FOIA
information. OMB explained that this guide should include:

the location of reading rooms within the agency and its major field
offices;

a brief description of the types and categories of information
available in these reading rooms;

the location of the agencys World Wide Web home page;

a reference to the agencys FOIA regulations and how to get a
copy; and,

a reference to the agencys Freedom of Information Act annual
report and how to get a copy.

These suggestions also fall far short of what is required by EFOIA. With
this memo, OMB seems to have overlooked the intent of the EFOIA legislation
 to provide easier access to government information electronically.
And, unfortunately, these minimal guidelines are what most of the
Departments that OMB Watch looked at, in preparation for this report, are
using as their guide. Most of them are not in compliance with the law. The
following chart indicates whether agencies have complied with central
E-FOIA requirements: (1) Does the agency have an Index of Major Information
Systems? (2) Does the agency have record locators? and (3) Does the agency
identify repeatedly requested documents?

Agency

Index of Major Information Systems

Records Locators

Identifiable Repeatedly Requested Documents

Department of Agriculture

No

No

No

Department of Commerce

No

No

No

Department of Defense

No

No

Yes*

United States Air Force

No

No

No

United States Army

No

Records Sch*

Yes*

United States Marine Corp

No

No

No

United States Navy

No

No

Yes*

Department of Education

No

No

No

Department of Energy

No

No

No

Department of Health and Human Services

No

No

Yes

Department of Housing and Urban
Development

No

No

Yes

Department of the Interior

No

No

Yes

Department of Justice**

Yes

Yes

No

Department of Labor

No

No

Yes

Department of State

No

Records Sch

?***

Department of Transportation

Yes

No

Yes

Department of Treasury

No

No

Yes

Department of Veterans Affairs

Yes

No**

Yes

Executive Office of the
President

Office of Administration

Yes

Records Sch

No

Office of Science and Technology
Policy

No

No

Yes

Office of Management and Budget

Yes

No

No

Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative

No

No

Yes

* Exists, but not easily identified.

** Points to GILS search engine. The requirement is an inventory, not the
opportunity to guess.

*** Department of State has a section called "special interest"
which may be the frequently request documents.

OMB's inadequate guidance has had significant consequences for OMB and
for a number of other agencies. On December 4, 1997, Public Citizen, a
nonprofit public interest organization, filed a federal lawsuit to enforce
the EFOIA. Seven federal agencies  the Office of Management and
Budget, the Office of Administration in the Executive Office of the
President, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of
Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, and the
Department of State  were sued for failure to comply with the EFOIA
requirements. The outcome of this litigation has yet to be decided in
federal court.

Permanent Public Access

Policy makers, historians and librarians have often used the term
"permanent public access" to explain the concept of making sure
than public records  whether paper or electronic -- remain available
and accessible to the public permanently. In the paper world, while many
documents are not available to the public, those that are published by the
government find permanent public homes in those depository libraries that
have comprehensive collections. This is increasingly not the case in the
online world. Often, old Web documents are deleted or pushed aside as new
officials come in and revamp an agency Web site.

The only provisions for permanent public access to the publics
information exist in legislation having to do with the Government Printing
Office  specifically, the Superintendent of Documents, the Federal
Depository Library Program, and GPO Access. Title 44, Chapter 19, Sec. 1902
requires that government publications, "except those determined by
their issuing components to be required for official use only or for
strictly administrative or operational purposes which have no public
interest or educational value and publications classified for reasons of
national security," be made available to depository libraries through
the Superintendent of Documents for public information. Each component of
the Government is, moreover, required to furnish the Superintendent of
Documents with a list of such publications, issued during the previous
month, that were obtained from sources other than the Government Printing
Office.

Title 44, Chapter 41, Sec. 4101 authorizes and mandates that the
Superintendent of Documents, under the direction of the Public Printer,
(1) maintain an electronic directory of Federal electronic information; (2)
provide a system of online access to the Congressional Record, the Federal
Register, and, as determined by the Superintendent of Documents, other
appropriate publications distributed by the Superintendent of Documents;
and (3) operate an electronic storage facility for Federal electronic
information to which online access is made available under paragraph (2).
The Superintendent of Documents is also authorized, to the extent
practicable, to accommodate any request by the head of a department or
agency to include in the system of access referred to above information
that is under the control of the department or agency involved.

Currently, no other statutes, regulations, or policies require permanent
public access to the publics information government-wide.

IV. Analysis of Ten Most Wanted Submissions

On June 28, 1999, CDT and OMB Watch put out a call to the public
requesting their suggestions of categories of unclassified government
information that would be valuable to the public if posted and regularly
updated on an agency's Web site. The call went to Internet activists,
reporters, researchers, librarians, government employees, and ordinary
citizens through Internet mailing lists and "Wanted!" posters on
the World Wide Web.

By August 1, over 196 responses (individual emails) were received
yielding a list of 280 requests (documents sought). Since individuals were
able to submit responses anonymously, it is impossible to give an exact
breakdown of the requestors (individuals making requests). However, we can
determine that the requests came from a wide range of sources, including:
46 from the research community, 30 from government employees, 23 from
librarians and library organizations, 22 from students, 13 from reporters
and 27 from people that simply identified themselves as citizens.

As would be expected from such a general call and such a high response
rate, the requests were extremely varied. However, the requests generally
fell into six categories:

Ten Most Wanted Candidates

 165 of the requests were for
specific documents or data categories that could not be located online and
were available in paper. These requests were considered for the 10 Most
Wanted List.

Requests for General Openness

 31 general requests were
general calls for greater openness in government.

Information Already Available Online

 25 requests were for
information that we found was already available online.

State and Local Information

 11 requests were for state or
local information.

Classified and Other Miscellaneous Requests

 48 requests
for classified information or for information that is not already being
collected by the government. (FOIA does not require the government to
create new records, only to disclose what is already on hand.)

Since each of these categories is of potential interest to both
policymakers and the public, we have a qualitative analysis of each.

CRS

In our initial call for requests, we mentioned Congressional Research
Service as an example of documents that we believe should be available.
While some may say that this biased the number of requests for CRS reports,
we believe that it would have been the most wanted category of documents,
regardless, for a couple of reasons:

Requestors were passionate about getting this information 
We received requests for CRS information from seven researchers and four
librarians. Some mentioned specific CRS documents that they were trying to
track down or that would be generally beneficial to their community. We
received requests from three government employees, including at least one
Capitol Hill staffer who said:

"Every citizen should have the same access to CRS material as I
do."

Legislation has been introduced on this issue  Senator McCain
(R-AZ), along with co-sponsors Senators Leahy (D-VT), Lott (R-MS), Abraham
(R-MI), Robb (R-VA), Enzi (R-WY), Lincoln (D-AR), Feingold (D-WI), and
Sessions (R-AL) introduced the Congressional Openness Act (S. 393), which
would make CRS documents available online. This bill has increased public
attention to the issues of access to congressional information and access
to government information in general. Representative Shays (R-CT) and
Representative Price (D-NC) have a similar bill in the House (HR 654).

Ten Most Wanted Candidates

Selecting the "Ten Most Wanted" from the 164 entries was difficult. Early
on, we decided not to make the list a simple popularity contest. The
majority of candidates were documents and databases that were mentioned by
only one respondent, but we did not take this to mean that other
individuals would not want access to the same information, for a few
important reasons:

Individuals may not know that the documents exist

 Many of
the requestors were government employees, government document librarians,
and researchers. These individuals have a specialized knowledge of the
range of documents that exist. Average citizens may be quite interested in
these documents, but the fact that citizens  in the absence of
adequate online indexing and search tools -- must guess what documents are
available is an ongoing barrier to access.

Requests came from various kinds of requestors

 Some of the requestors were individuals, but some
represented institutions or organizations. For example, at the American
Library Associations recent convention, the ALAs Government
Documents Roundtable developed its own "Ten Most Wanted" list in
collaboration with our project. The list was sent in and is reported here
as 10 requests from a single requestor, yet this organization represents
hundreds of librarians.

Some requests were for general information categories, while others
were for specific documents 

The call for suggestions was
purposely general, in order to try to capture a range of types of
documents. The result was exactly what we asked for. For example, we
received single requests for clean air, water resources, and pesticide
information from all agencies, but we also received requests for very
specific water resources documents such as "Water Resources
Investigations Reports (I 19.42/4)." We decided to try to select the
specific documents and data sets that would interest the most people.

Our "Ten Most Wanted" list reflects additional considerations:

Diversity of Branches

 None of the branches of
government has been completely effective in making documents available
online. We wanted to make sure that this was reflected in the final list.

Diversity of Subject Matter

 Government information
covers a wide variety of subjects.

Variety of Material

 Requests ranged from databases to
maps to specific reports. We wanted to make sure that the "Ten Most
Wanted" list was not restricted to one type of resource.

Feasibility

 Since we were searching for the most
egregious cases, we attempted to weigh the amount of effort and resources
that would have to be devoted to make the information available against the
benefit that having the information could provide. (see detailed
information on cost)

Frequency of Request

 Although popularity was not the
only concern, it did influence the selection process.

Contact was made with all of the agencies that held documents considered
for inlcusion in the final "Ten Most Wanted" list. The agencies
were given the opportunity to show that the information was already
available online; to give an explanation of why the information was not
online; or to convince us that this information would not be a good
candidate.

4 were for complete text of US Code (some specifically mentioned daily
updates)

most of the rest were single requests for data sets or documents

Agencies requested

The 165 Ten Most Wanted candidates identified 30 different agencies. Here
is a listing with the number of requests next to the agency name:

CIA  1

Federal Broadcast Information Service  1

Congress  29

FCC  3

Department of Agriculture  8

Federal Election Commission  1

Department of Commerce - 15

Federal Emergency Management Agency  2

Department of Defense  7

Federal Housing Finance Board  1

Department of the Interior  13

General Services Administration  2

Department of Justice  2

IRS  2

Department of Labor  1

Judicial Branch  14

Department of Education  2

National Archives and Records Administration  1

Department of Health and Human Services  6

Office of Management and Budget  2

Department of State  9

Office of Personnel Management  2

Department of Transportation  3

OPS  1

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission  1

Public Debt Agency  1

EPA  10

Social Security Administration  1

The remaining requests were for documents across several agencies or for
data sets still under investigation at the time this report was published.

In some cases, we did not indicate a missing document set on the Ten
Most Wanted list because the agency seemed to have dissemination plans for
the future. For example, while the maps of the US Geological Survey (USGS)
were some of the most frequently requested documents, the agency was able
to show that it has a plan for making this information available. Included
in this plan, USGS has outlined ways to address some of the cost issues in
innovative ways as they integrate the vast amount of the agencys
information online. While this does not fully answer all of the concerns
about USGS, it evidences an understanding that the information needs to be
publicly available online. We will continue to monitor their progress.

Cost

In an era of major budget cuts, cost was the issue most often cited by
the agencies and government officials in explaining their failure to create
Web sites or post certain sets of information. In some cases, this may be
a valid concern and it was taken into account in selecting the final ten.
Yet, sometimes exactly the opposite is true: putting information online
will save the government money.

Of the agencies on the "Ten Most Wanted" list that mentioned cost
as an issue, only CRS had a public estimate of how much it would cost
taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) did a preliminary cost
estimate confirming CRS claims and estimated the cost from between
that ranged from $1.8 to $7.1 million.

However, our subsequent inquiries and reports from the Government
Accounting Office (GAO), the Government Printing Office (GPO) and the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prove that many of the basic assumptions in
the CBOs report are unfounded. The CBO began with the assumptions
that:

due to the publicity of having a Web site, requests for paper copies of
existing CRS reports would increase rather than decrease;

Congress and the public would request more new studies, causing a
ballooning of the CRS budget by between 2% and 10%, which accounted for
most of the cost; and

Congressional offices would not receive any meaningful savings to make
up for the short term costs of the agency.

The experience of the GAO, an agency that also creates reports at the
request of Members of Congress, would lead to a completely different set of
conclusions. GAO began putting up all of its reports in October 1994
through GPO Access and in 1996 decided that it would be cost effective to
begin providing the reports on a GAO Web site directly to the public.
Despite the fact that citizens can order the first printed copy of GAO
products for free directly online, the actual number of copies that GAO has
printed has gone down from 1.2 million a year to 800,000 a year. Meanwhile
150,000 to 200,000 copies of every report are being downloaded online.
Although this number does not represent the total number of people looking
at each report, since some people download the same report more than once,
there are obviously more people seeing these reports than ever before. GAO
sources also say that the agency has seen no increase in requests from
Congress to create reports and no increase in phone calls from the public
about the reports. This also does not take into account the more difficult
to gauge savings that Congressional offices are experiencing now because
constituents can browse through GAO reports including the staff research
time saved. While there may have been some initial start-up costs to put
the data on a GAO Web site, there is no question that GAO has saved
taxpayers money over the long term by putting all reports online.

GPO has documented similar savings. GPOs 1997 Report to Congress
has a section titled "GPO Access Benefits and Savings from
Dissemination of Electronic Information," which found that:

The dissemination of electronic information through GPO Access has
provided both tangible and intangible benefits, as well as real cost
savings for the GPO. While it is not possible to calculate these benefits
and savings for all of our products, CBDNet presents an example of this
trend. CBDNet has provided cost savings both to the public and throughout
the Government. When the Commerce Business Daily was distributed only in
paper, it cost $2.2 million a year, and distribution was limited to those
individuals who could afford a subscription. Prior to CBDNet, agencies paid
$18 per notice submitted to CBD. Now agencies who submit notices
electronically are only charged $5 per notice. It is estimated that this
electronic submission option is saving the Government, on average, over
$130,000 per month, or over $1.5 million per year. These financial savings
and the many other benefits mentioned previously have made CBDNet a huge
success.

GPO sources have also told us that demand for paper products has diminished
as the information has gone online. GPOs1999 report to Congress is
expected to provide even more details of the cost savings agencies can reap
by providing the public electronic access.

The IRS has also documented a fall in the demand for paper products as
their downloads of forms has increased from less then 4 million in 1996 to
over 63 million this year. This translates into direct savings since, by
the agencys figures, it costs about $3 to mail an IRS paper product
and less than a penny to provide it online.

For agencies concerned about potential short-term costs, GPO Access is
willing to place agencies' information online. In fact, GPO sees online
services as central to its public mission. They provide server space, Web
design, database work, and more. The price would be lower than the
short-term costs associated with an agency putting information online in
house with the added benefits of permanent public access. While this option
does not give agencies all of the long-term benefits, it does offer a
solution in times of difficult budget cuts and it ensures the public's
right to know will not be undercut.

Requests for General Openness

We received 31 requests for greater government openness and increased
access to information online. These requests fell into two specific
categories:

Suggestions on how to make agencies more accountable  Several
respondents shared specific thoughts on how to get more information online.
For example:

"Every agency that has data should create their own Top 10
variables and post them as a time series going back at least 20 years in an
easily accessible place on their website."

Concern over the vast amount of missing information
Some respondents pointed to a general failure within the government to get
information online. For example,

"As a government documents librarian at a small public college in
the poorest state in the nation, I can tell you that there are thousands of
essential government documents that are not available on the web. I am
checking available links against the SuDocs List of Classes to evaluate our
collection and finding that there is little consistency in site maps,
publications lists, and other tools for finding what is available from
agency to agency even within the same executive department..."

and

"I think anything that is supposed to be public information should
be available online. I fail to understand how some information, though
supposedly public, can be restricted and available only by going through
one's representative. This is compliance?"

The fact that 31 people wrote in without a specific document in mind
emphasizes the overarching public concern with the lack of access to
government information.

Information Already Available Online

In several cases, the information being sought is online, but citizens have
such a difficult time locating it, it hardly matters. Since requesters
thought that the following information was not online, we decided to
explain how to locate it, explain how the governments Web sites are
integrated and let agencies know about the documents that cannot be located
easily, in the hope that agencies will improve their searching and indexing
resources.

Documents on GPO Access

GPO Access http://www.access.gpo.gov is one of
the best sources for online information and probably the first place that
researchers should look if they are having trouble. We found all of the
following documents there:

The "Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents," which
includes Executive Orders and other Presidential documents, is only
available through a keyword searchable database. Plans to make these
records searchable through a browsing mechanism are underway.

Census Data

We had many requests for "more" census data online. We were able to locate
the specific information requested from the agency's homepage.

We received a few requests for a tracking mechanism on certain
subjects. Fortunately such a tool exists. Thomas http://thomas.loc.gov was created by the
Library of Congress to help citizens keep track of legislative proposals.
Generally, the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov ; either of the two
Congressional sites http://www.house.gov
and http://www.senate.gov ; or GPO
Access are good places to start looking for legislative and Congressional
information. We also received a request for the Cox Report, which, at the
time this report was published was linked directly from the House Home Page
http://www.house.gov .

Information on Federal Grants is spread throughout the federal government.
Unfortunately, there is still no way to track down the information without
knowing where to start. There are several sites that have sprung up
dedicated to grant information, notably GrantsNet http://www.hhs.gov/progorg/grantsne
t/ on the Department of Health and Human Services Web site which
includes a "Whos Who in Federal Grants Management." The
best single online source for information is the Catalog of Federal
Domestic Assistance (CFDA), which describes itself as "a
government-wide compendium of Federal programs, projects, services, and
activities that provide assistance or benefits to the American
public." It is put together by the General Services Administration.

Although one might think that the Department of Labor would have links to
all labor oriented information in the government, this is not the case.
The Department of Labor has a useful set of information on its Web site,
but it does not have easy-to-find links to other important sources of
information on the U.S. workforce. We found these two sites more by chance
than by plan.

The Office of Management and Budget http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
keeps track of all pending paperwork and regulations. These databases are
online at the White House site http://www.whitehouse.gov/ , which,
along with GPO Access, is the first place that someone looking for
information from the Executive Branch may want to start.

We received a request for the Department of Commerces recent report,
"Falling Through the Net." The requestor thought that the
report was written by the FCC. A look on GSAs full government search
engine http://www.info.gov can help get
a requestor to their report without knowing the agency that created.

We limited the "Ten Most Wanted" list to federal government
documents. However, we received 11 requests for state information.
Requests ranged from "county and city budgets" to aerial maps of
certain locations.

Classified and Other Miscellaneous Requests

Many requests were for historical documents that have piqued the
nations curiosity, for example, John F. Kennedy assassination records
and investigations into possible alien landings in the U.S. Most of the
non-classified records in these subject areas are available online.

Another large percentage of requests were for large collections that do
not currently exist, for example,

"Breakout of bills proposed and an analysis of their consequences plus
an analysis of proposed riders showing who is trying to ride pork on a bill
by including costly irrelevancy."

Other requests raised various concerns. For example, one request suggested
that military service records should be put online. These records are in
many different locations, would be expensive to data process, and could
cause significant privacy concerns among the nations veterans.